BBC World Service schedule for American satellite radio and the Caribbean

BBC World Service Americas and the Caribbean

Resolves

Factual: Life Stories

People reflect on how they will do things differently after living with a deadly virus.

In a series of special programmes recorded as the world gradually ‘unlocks’ during the Covid 19 crisis, we hear from people of all kinds, experiencing life on different continents, in different countries, in rural and urban societies, reflect on aspects of their lives and determine ways in which they want to do something differently. They offer up small and large initiatives; acts that give expression and focus to the change they are undertaking. These echo the Resolves that each of us will also make in recognition of our own preoccupations given the charge of life and the proximity to death, seemingly closer, in the presence of the disease.

We hear Resolves that will bring about a greater awareness of the natural world or the decision to provide mobile healthcare to giving school pupils new educational structures. We also hear the frustration of young Zimbabwean Anele Matshiselaa  who sees the terrible deterioration of health and the natural environment but it has nothing to do with Covid 19 – this is the long term drought that has bought the country to its knees and is the cause of people crying that they would rather die of the virus rather than desperate days of contamination and dehydration without water. He determines an important change in his work in wildlife research and management.

Resolvers include Primatologist Frans de Waal (US), Olympic Gold Medallist Sally Gunnell in the UK, Head Teacher Caroline Hodges (UK), International curator Juliana Engberg (NZ) and Environmental Journalist Gayathri Vaidyanathan (India).

Resolves: Resolves: Environment journalist Gayathri Vaidyanathan

Environment journalist Gayathri Vaidyanathan

13/06/2020 GMT

BBC World Service - Resolves, Resolves, Environment journalist Gayathri Vaidyanathan

The Indian journalist on why she wants to be a "non-consumer"

The Indian journalist Gayathri Vaidyanathan explains why living in lockdown has made her resolve to be a "non-consumer for as long as possible".

Gayathri Vaidyanathan remains with her family, in her own, self-imposed lockdown in Chennai, India. Her resolve is to be a "non-consumer for as long as possible". She continues, "I’ve been trying to cut down my consumption for a while, but my execution was imperfect. I tried to grow some vegetables in a raised garden bed back at my house in Bangalore, but white flies decimated them. I continued to buy things I didn’t need. I ordered lots of takeout. I bought a bamboo salad bowl last year when I don’t even enjoy salads. Why did I buy it?"

She recorded her resolve ahead of the broadcast, and was fearful of what would happen in the next few days. Each day she learns of more cases nearby, just two lanes away or one street down.  "Workers in India don’t get paid to stay at home, there is little choice but to work," she reflects. "The daring, the desperation is all set to burst".

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